First of all, why don't you introduce yourself to those of us who
don't already know you?

Okay, my name is Joel D. Wynkoop, I have been
acting in and making movies professionally since 1984 - if you count my
super 8 stuff it would be since 1972. My dad bought me a super 8
movie camera back in 1972 and I made my first stop motion movie for my
Greek Mythology class. Then I made another and then teamed with my
next door neighbor Steve Campbell and this kid next door named Tim Ritter
to do a stop motion dinosaur movie. Tim let me use his model
dinosaur. Then I made The Eight Million Dollar Boy meets The
Invisible Transport Boy, teamed with Steve again and using Tim as an
actor. That eight year old kid named Tim Ritter would in the near
future become my partner. Actually growing up I watched Tim and his
sister Wendy for his Mom and Dad. I kept making movies when I left
the area and I hope and think I was the one that started Tim making
movies, for I had moved away and was still making them and so was Tim.

Ten years later we re-met through Tim's and my nephew's High School.
The paper advertised a movie called Day of the Reaper when my
nephew Terry told me the guy who made it was Tim Ritter. I put two and two
together, tracked him down and we got together the next day. We
wanted to do a movie that Tim and I wrote called Inner Forces, but it was to much for us to accomplish FX-wise so we brainstormed and
came up with Twisted Illusions - YouTube
- Twisted Illusions Trailer - our first feature ... well it was seven
shorts. Tim wrote three and I wrote three and Tim used one of
his old stories for our opening with Tim and I as ourselves trying to
pitch our movie idea to a bed ridden producer. That started it for
us. We took the short and sent it to Peerless Films in Chicago, and
Tim secured financing for one of the short stories he would turn into a
feature, that feature and short were... Truth or Dare? A Critical
Madness - YouTube
- Truth Or Dare? A Critical Madness Motion Picture Trailer.

In between Creep and
our next feature Screaming for Sanity - YouTube
- Screaming For Sanity: Truth Or Dare Part 3 Trailer - I was
working on the Alien Agenda-series with Kevin Lindenmuth and
Rot for Marcus Koch. Phil Herman wanted me for his movie Tales
till the End as well. Garland Hewlitt asked me to
be in Brainrobbers from Outer Space while I was in Tampa doing
Marcus' movie Rot. Tim and I next did Screaming for Sanity, followed by
Dirty Cop, No Donut - YouTube
- Low Down Dirty Cop Preview (1998 Edition) -, then it all stopped
for awhile when Tim moved away.

However long distance did not stop
Tim and I, we collaborated on Dirty Cop 2: I am a Pig. Then I started working with people in my area, Mike Hoffman (who worked
for Tim and I long before I worked for him on Horror Tales 666 which was a Phil Herman
movie [Phil
Herman interview - click here]). Shortly after this I did
Christian Soldiers for Richard Cecere and Scary Tales, also for Mike Hoffman, and then
Tales for the Midnight Hour for Ryan Cavalline [Ryan
Cavalline interview - click here].

Soon I was teamed up with Tim again,
Kevin Lindenmuth flew me to Kentucky where we shot Alien Conspiracy
for him, his next installment of the Alien Agenda-series - YouTube
- Endangered Species Trailer (1996). I believe before
this I was back with Mike Hoffman working on Scary Tales 2: The Return
of Mr. Longfellow. The character I came up with, Longfellow, had a little cult following of people walking around
imitating me from the movie. At a con once a guy asked me
"would you call my girlfriend and talk to her like Longfellow?"
which I did and she loved it.

Wow, I had a messy divorce in 1999
which moved me to Tampa and then things just took off in the acting world.
Also I had started working on Fall of an Actor just before I
left Fort Pierce. Fall of an Actor is sort of my pet
project, we finished it ten years ago and it still needs to be put
together, but I'm working on it ... slowly. I got busy when I moved
to Tampa with movie projects and even more busy as the years went on and
since I left my job of over 20 years it has become very busy for me in the
acting field, whether it is commercials on TV or indie movies, I find myself
trying to balance projects so I can do them now. The offers keep
coming in, not that I'm rich or anything, I am definitely a struggling
actor, but I have so much on my plate I don't know what I can eat and what
I can't ...

Funny, you'd think MySpace
was just for kids ... on the contrary, I have gotten a lot of my acting jobs
from MySpace. Which is the origin or at least part of the origin of
my being in Body in a Dumpster - YouTube
- Body in a Dumpster Trailer. I met Kristian Day [Kristian
Day interview - click here] in
Orlando at Screamfest 2006, if memory serves me We had shared interest in
the new Truth or Dare-movie which was supposed to be made (not
by Tim though), and Kristian was to do the music. Anyway Kris and I
became good friends ... now flash forward to a few years ago when I was on
my MySpace and I see a note from him about making a movie called Body
in a Dumpster and I message him saying "how can you make a
movie like this with out Joel D. Wynkoop?" - I laughed as I wrote it. He
wrote me back "We thought about you but we just never put it into
words, let me talk to my partner and I'll get back to you."
Next I knew I was flying to Des Moines, Iowa, to shoot the movie.

Working with Kristain and the rest of cast and crew was great. In
fact after Kris and his partner the first person I was to see there was
Marcus Koch and I told him on location "Man, we live in the same town
a half hour away from each other and we both have to come to Iowa to see
each other." I also met some new acting friends, Barron
Christian from Star Trek 6[Barron
Christian interview - click here] and Bruce Spielbauer from Dark Knight
and Larry Laverty of Mad TV whom I will be seeing
shortly as I'm ready to go to Indiana to do Post Mortem America 2021.
The whole shoot was awesome. I even got to direct Lloyd
Kaufman for five short minutes or so. I am anxious to see it come
out, these things sometimes take a while.

Phil and I hit it off great right away. It
was right after Creep when I read about Phil and Burglar from
Hell in Independent Video, a magazine which allegedly went
bankrupt just before our story on Creep came out and we were
featured on the cover - figures.

Phil
was supposed to be in Screaming for Sanity, but I couldn't get
him on the plane to fly down, think B.A. Barrackus on the A-Team, "I
ain't getting on no plane Hannibal!!"

So you think that would stop
us?

No, I worked him into the dialogue as one of the patients in
Sunnyville Mental Institution, he told me later he was falling asleep in
it (thanks a lot Phil) when he heard his name and he jumped up "They
said my name."

Yes before all this I had worked on
Tales Till the End, Tales to Die For, Horror Tales 666,
Jacker 2: Descent to Hell, and I think Into
the Woods. Oh and Always Midnight, which is a story in itself how this ever got done, you'd need and
interview by itself to cover that. Phil and I never met in person
which is why this alone is such a cool story, we are friends from our
movies and conversations over the phone and the Internet. I also
credited Phil with a writing credit on my feature The Bite. Phil actually sent me a three page synopsis for a short
... long story
short I took too long, Phil had to move on and I turned his three page
synopsis into a 80 minute feature called The Bite - Movies
- Infidel - Main. I still owed him a short though, so I wrote,
starred in and directed Kill Her, Arnold. When Phil was getting ready to shoot
Into the Woods, he told me
about it and I told him right then that this was going to be his stand-out
movie. He wanted Cathy and I to do a role which was nice of him. We were to play security at the hospital that were keeping an eye on
Phil's character. I don't think we're even in the movie for ten
minutes but it was fun to do and I am always appreciative of Phil of
whatever he sends my way. Not just that, but Phil knows I will go out
and shoot footage for him if he needs it just like I have done for movie
maker Ryan Cavalline. Check out Into
the Woods, it is a
pretty cool little movie which deals with lies and deception and twists
and turns that will keep you guessing through the movie till the very end.
It marks the return of Nancy Felicianno to features as well, and she does a
great job ... although my favorite Nancy Felicianno appearance is that
in Tales Till the End playing herself.

Way to go Nancy, I love
you.

Perhaps the film
with the greatest title in your filmography is Aspiring Psychopath
(2008) by Ryan Cavalline [Ryan
Cavalline interview - click here]. Would you like to say a few
words about that one?

Greatest? You must be friends with Ryan,
did you know I was supposed to marry his wife first? We actually
dueled over her and he won, I wanted her for me but he cheated and used
some kind of weird spraying device on his fencing sword which temporarily
blinded me and he took her away from me, she secretly loves me, that's
between you and me Mike.

Anyway's,
okay I just looked at my IMDB, you're right that is pretty good, but the
others are nothing to sneeze at either. Out of all the movies I have
done for Ryan, Day of the Axe, Tales for the Midnight Hour, Evil
Tales 3, Dead
Body Man Chronicles, Serial
Killer, I think I like Aspiring Psychopath the best, as far as my role goes. I got to be Dan
Hess again and that was cool to reprise his character and even bring back
the suit I wore in Wicked Games, and it wasn't a cameo, it was
more part of the story, the girl is supposed to be Dan's estranged
denounced daughter.

Hey Ryan, I know why you did this, when are we
doing the sequel when Dan's daughter rubs off on him and he goes over the
edge and he becomes this ruthless killer? ... although that is going to
conflict with the idea I just tried to sell to Tim about Dan Hess:
Monster Hunter, where Dan battles all these kinds of creatures like
Kolchak or Dean and Sam Winchester. I love working with Ryan,
another person, like Phil, whom I have never met face to face, but get
along with great. Especially with his new bride Tracy, her and
I just spent time ... oh, that's too personal for this interview, Ryan told
me to keep those private issues to myself, sorry Ryan. Tracy, I love
you, shhh don't tell Ryan, he'll send the Dead
Body Man after
me. As in all I thought Aspiring Psychopath was another
one of those movies that really makes you think about the person next to
you. I thought the movie was pretty cool.

Then there's of course the Joel
Wynkoop Show. Would you like to elaborate on that one?

The
Joel Wynkoop Show is something my partner Doug Vaters came up with.
He said to me one day as we were doing Wynkoop TV - www.wynkooptv.com
(shamless plug) - "You should do The Joel Wynkoop Show!"

I laughed
and said "yeah right!"

He insisted "No really, we could do
that, I'll shoot it and you interview people in the acting or entertaining
field." So was born The Joel Wynkoop Show. Doug is
redesigning the website now but when he is done we'll start having
the interviews up where people can see them on the net. We're still
using www.wynkooptv.com
since it is established, once you get there you will click on enter and it
will have choices for past Wynkoop videos (like Spooky Empire or TV
commercials and the like) to watch, Wynkoop TV or The Joel Wynkoop
Show. If I can remember I have interviewed Anthony (Dark
Dimensions, Shaawanookie) Wayne, Melanie (Slay Angels) Robel, Jaimie
(Tidbits of Terror) Lea, Jerry (Bonanza-,
Dukes of Hazzard-stuntman) Alan, Jefferey
(voice of the Joker,
Recount, Swamp Thing)
Bresslauer, just to name a few.

It's a half hour show and I make it
my own adding my own antics in a Conan O'Brien-style plus the Wynkoop 30
Second DVD Review. Hopefully people will take a look at it and drop
us some comments and let us know what they think. Check it out,
hopefully by the time this comes out the new site will be up: www.wynkooptv.com.

A
few words on your upcoming Brainjacked (2009)?

Brainjacked
is done and is going through its last stages of
post, color correction and all that crap. Hopefully it will be out
in the next couple months. I play Norm Simkins, a television
reporter that some of the kids trust to help them ... do I? - em, it's a
horror movie so ... probably not. Actually the part was a lot bigger
but they lost an actor who was to have an entire scene with me and
the location fell through along with the actor so it shortened my scene
but as I told fellow actor Anthony Wayne, it doesn't matter the size of
your (the scene your playing) part, make it your own, and I did just that.
The quality is HIGH DEF at it's best, it looks great. You can see
the trailer here BRAINJACKED
Trailer - AOL Video. I am waiting with great anticipation I
have seen enough of this to know it is going to be very cool. The
producers are Andy Lalino and Andrew Allan who I again worked for as
producers of Herschell Gordon Lewis' new movie Grimm Fairy Tales [Herschell
Gordon Lewis bio - click here].

Any
future projects you'd like to talk about?

As
I was stating earlier in interview, my very latest short was Shelter
and latest feature flicks were Stopped Dead
both for
Jason Liquori [Jason Liquori interview
- click here] of Hocus Focus Productions and of course Grimm
Fairy Tales by Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Godfather of Gore.

Future
projects? Well, so far I am slated for Dirty Cop 3 in
October, Hellstorm sometime in September, Post Mortem 2021 in May,
Unexpecting in two weeks and a couple of my
own projects plus whatever comes up that I can squeeze in. Of course I will release
The Joel Wynkoop Show as soon as new site is done.
Anybody that would like me in one of their movie's please contact me at my
email nekodablast@aol.com
but leave a reference in the subject box, thanks. Or if your serious
about using me in a role please call me at 813 951 5431 - if I don't answer
please leave me a message.

Besides
acting, you also direct movies (or contributions for anthologies) from
time to time. What can you tell us about that aspect of your career?

If
I want to do something and am too impatient I start stuff on my own. Twisted
Illusions was done because Tim and I wanted to do
something as a collaboration and we did just that. Both of us
directing and both of us producing as well as acting. We had agreed
that we would each write three stories and we would direct as well so I
kind of started knowing I could do that as well, I just like the acting
more. Although now I am getting offers from movie makers to direct
their features as well. Lost Faith was a favorite of
mine, I wrote, directed and starred in that feature as well as produced
(and made sure I had catering and everything else that goes on with
making a movie) and did the fight choreography. Aside
from assistant directing on Tim's movies I think the next I produced and
shot would have been The Part which was one of the short's for Twisted
Illusions Two. Once again I wrote, directed and
produced as well as starred in. Then I think came The Bite, another movie I starred myself in but also wrote and directed
and produced with my partner Chris Conklin. I guess like I said, I love the acting more but like I've said I have got offers to
direct as well just because of my experience with the flicks I have been
in or have shot myself. Kill Her, Arnold was another
short I had written and directed and starred in for Always Midnight, the Phil Herman anthology.

Check out Lost Faith, The Bite along with the shorts I've done as well
that are in anthology videos like, Mental Maniacs, Crazed
Killers, and Savage Sickos. Oh, of
course, Fall of an actor, my pet project that is taking
forever to get done.

What got you
into films and filmmaking in the first place?

When
I found out as a kid or a teen that King
Kong was an armature, and
Godzilla was a man in a suit. I grew up on Horror Inc.
Dracula, Curse
of the Werewolf, The Blob,
Green Slime. Anybody remember The Shuddered Room? Also that was the
horror side, but then I loved
super heroes too, and I guess I did that a lot as a kid, pretending I was Batman. I guess it was just how I grew up and what I watched on TV that
made me want to be an actor too. My Dad bought me the super 8 camera
to keep me out of trouble and get me interested in something and I think
that is what really did it, those first super 8 movies of mine. I
met Steve Campbell and the two of us said "let's make a movie." The rest is history.

Your
website, mySpace, youTube, whatever else?

I
would love to hear from you or you readers at my email nekodablast@aol.com or
my MySpacewww.myspace.com/108272825, www.wynkooptv.com.
If anyone would like to see my trailers or videos of me, my movies, TV show
or anything, a lot of it is on YouTube, just pull it up and put my name in
search engine, there's a lot there to see.

A few words
about some of your past films from your rich filmography I feel we just
have to talk about: Twisted Illusions (1985) pretty much put you on
the scene as actor and director. Please tell us something about that film
and your co-director Tim Ritter, with whom you collaborated quite
frequently over the years?

Tim is
great. As I said above, I met Tim back
in 1972 I believe. My neighbor Steve Campbell would here him playing his
... was it a flute, no I think it was a trumpet, he would play The
Six Million Dollar Man over and over again until he saw Star Wars, then it was that tune every single day. His
mom asked me
if I could watch him and his sister while she worked, which I did.
Tim's mom was even my substitute teacher when I was a kid at Lake Park
Elementary. Little not known fact, one day I saw Mrs. Ritter at her
house outside, I asked her if everything was okay and she said she was
locked out, I picked the lock and let her in, little trivia fact there for
Ritter fans.

I think I covered how we did Twisted Illusions together, but it was a lot of fun. It was actually
1984 when we started shooting it. I can tell you this: I was
never intended to be in Twisted Illusions except maybe the
opening story. We were sitting in my crappy apartment in West
Palm Beach and Tim said "I really need a guy to be crazy and intense
in the Truth or Dare segment, hopefully I can find someone
like that." I said, "what, like this?" and I
started acting out the Truth or Dare scene when Mike was
hacking his hand off and ripping open his chest - and Tim screamed "YOU
GOTTA DO IT MAN!!!" That's how I got the part of Mike Strauber
in the original Truth or Dare - YouTube
- Truth Or Dare Original Short Starring Joel D. Wynkoop
We had another short that we shot but never got put into the Twisted
Illusions movie it was called Take Out the Trash about a
little boy that was afraid to take out the garbage, he tells his Mom
there's a monster in the garbage bin, so the mom walks out an shows
him there's no monster and when the boy is finally convinced his Mom tells
him "take out the trash" the boy does and while he's throwing
out the trash a monster comes out of the garbage bin and eats him. Why
didn't we do that, we have footage of it on one of the Twisted
Illusions releases, we've released three of them: Twisted Illusions 1984,
Twisted Illusions 2000 and Twisted Illusions Unlimited. Tim has been my best friend for years and
I miss working with him, hopefully things will go according to plan for Dirty
Cop 3 and I'll get to work again with him soon. We stay in
touch yet today via emails and occasionally MySpace.

What about the Alien
Agenda-movies (1996 - '98)?

It started right after Creep started
getting publicity and Kevin Lindenmuth got in touch with us and wanted Tim to
shoot a scene with me for Alien Agenda - Out of the Darkness.
I was playing Sasha Graham's father. It was just a flashback scene but it
was pretty cool to be asked by Kevin to be in the movie. It was me in the
bathroom reacting to the camera which was supposed to be Sasha's characters POV
so I was basically yelling at the camera the whole time. We did several
takes of me yelling some with shaving cream on and some without. It made
the cover of Alternative Cinema in 1996 (I believe 96 or 97) so that was pretty
cool.

Next came Alien Agenda: Endangered Species - YouTube
- Endangered Species Trailer (1996) - Kevin and Tim had written the
Ransom story for Endangered Species and I was to play a
character called Cope Ransom. This was pretty cool to do, I actually got
to use some karate which Tim was usually against, but this time he said
"Yes, your character would know karate so I want you to work out some cool
fight scenes." I remember Tim saying "Man, the sun is melting
the camera." We had gone through a hurricane at the time and Tim
wanted to go out and film in it but at the last minute we were like, "Maybe
we better not." Post apocalyptic was the tone of the short so we
drove around looking for deserted places which would fit the movie. There
was an old broken down K-Mart by his place we used, an old gas station up by
where I lived, a school bus out in the middle of these weird woods Frank Wales
had found for us, he even spray painted WANNA PLAY TRUTH OR DARE on the side of
it. The fight scene I worked out was with David Lurry who I had worked
with in Lost Faith, he played Barnes in that movie, this role was
much more serious. He played one of the worm aliens guarding the wall that
I had to climb over to get to the desolate areas. This was a homage to Escape
from New York because Tim and I were both fans of the movie,
"Call me Snake". We were actually going to open it like that, me
being walked in to see him, Tim was going to play the part with his hair all
pulled out and we were going to do the same "basic" dialogue Plisken
and Hawk had. Just change it to fit Endangered Species ... oh
well, maybe some day in the future. Long time pal of ours Rich Hoopes was
in this as well, it was always fun working with Rich.

This is also the
shoot the cops drew down on me with their guns. We were in Johnathan
Dickenson State Park and the cops seen me pointing a gun at Kathy, Tim's wife, but
they couldn't see Tim with the camera or Rich with the sound equipment because
they were blocked by some bushes. They saw me though and yelled "drop
it now!" Like a dummy I turned with the gun in my hand and they
dropped to their knees pulling their guns and said "Drop it now or you're
dead."

I dropped it and said "Okay it's just a prop."

"Are those weapons on your belt?"

"Yes" I said

"Drop them now!!"

"I can't" I yelled "They're taped
to my body."

What way to make a living ...

We
followed up Alien Agenda: Endangered Species with Alien
Conspiracy, I flew out to Kentucky to shoot Alien Conspiracy with Tim again for Kevin Lindenmuth. We were way up in the mountains and
the main thing I was concerned with was Tim driving up the side of the mountain,
I thought for sure we were going to go right over the side of the cliff. I
remember at 3 o'clock in the morning having freezing cold water thrown on
me to substitute gasoline for the torture scene, oh well I guess it was better
then real gasoline. Tim promised he would never make me run all over the
place again but here he had me out in the woods, making me run up and down this
mountain of a hill and run down steep paths until I would drop over gasping for
breath. Up and down the same hill over and over again, fighting a battery
operated worm, breaking through force fields and fighting pasty faced monsters
that think they're rock stars. It was great just to be working with Tim
again, we had been apart too long. As far as the short, it was a lot of fun
to do and I think pretty entertaining. Alien Conspiracy was
the last thing we worked on for Kevin Lindenmuth.

The films that actually
give Aspiring Psychopath a run for its money title-wise are the Dirty
Cop-movies, Dirty Cop No Donut (1999) and Dirty Cop 2: I am
a Pig (2001). A few words about those?

Those were fun to do although part one probably
rushed my divorce along but I'm all for the better now. Dirty Cop No Donut
was actually called Low Down Dirty Cop, but
it sounded to much like Low Down Dirty Shame so our
distributor said come up with a new title and Tim came up with Dirty Cop No
Donut. This was basically ideas and scenes written
down, Tim would give me the idea what we wanted to accomplish and what
basic things to cover and then he would say "GO". The
store scene was fun to shoot, it was cleared with the guy on duty but all
those hammerheads in the background had no idea what we were doing.
We had a lot of fun working together on that, and it was our last feature
we worked together on. Dirty Cop 2: I am a Pig we shot
separately, Bill and I shot our part in Fort Pierce while Tim and Donald
Farmer shot their part in Kentucky. That was a lot of fun too but I
remember Tim telling me when I sent him the footage Bill and I had shot,
"there's no pay off." It was more of a comedy I guess, our
part I mean. But I like the comedy but Tim wanted more of a pay off
like someone getting punched out or wrestled to the ground. Actually
there are several versions of Dirty Cop 2: I am a Pig.
There is that, then Dirty Cop 2 and Dirty Cop 2 Special Edition and then there's one with the other scenes that were
originally cut out with those scenes put back in. Then Dirty Cop 2: I
am a Pig has the Donald Farmer scenes and my scenes in the
one movie, the others they are separate. My second to
favorite scene in Dirty Cop 2 Special Edition is in the
store when I am arguing with the clerk, that cracks me up. My
favorite is when I am talking to my cameraman in the car and I tell him if
he says one more word I'm gonna kick the shit out of him and he says just
tryin' to make conversation and I chase him and throw potato chips at him
and then beat him into the ground. I just like the comedy of it.
I loved doing both of them.

Actress
Apocalypse (2005) is actually another film with a great title. What
can you tell us about this one?

Actually this is something I did for Rich
Anasky in Spring Hill. I am in the extras on that for the original Actress Apocalypse when I played the original character.
It was a blast doing that, Rich is a lot of fun to work with.
I also did I am Vengeance for him where I reprised the Dirty
Cop-role, it was like Gus disappeared from Dirty Cop 2 and had this little adventure in between. When we did
Actress Apocalypse, I think we called it The Lincoln Brothers,
but I can't remember. Anyway, I was the original
actor in the original shoot.

A few words about Brain
Robbers from Outer Space (2004), mainly because it's another great
title?

Brain
Robbers from Outer Space was the role I got because I was in the Tampa area
doing Rot for Marcus Koch. Marcus was on the phone with
Garland Hewlit, who was producing his own movie called Brain
Robbers from Outer Space. Marcus was telling him I can help you, but I
have Joel Wynkoop here and we're shooting scenes for Rot, but I
can still help you out. Garland at this time said "Joel Wynkoop
from the movie Creep?", and Marcus responded yes. well Garland asked
Marcus "Do you think he would do a scene for me in my movie?"
I jumped at the chance and went over with Marcus and met Garland, who in
turn lined his whole cast up so they could meet me. A very cool
experience and a lot of fun. I karate battled a zombie ... and I
lost. I think there's a song like that, it goes "I fought the
zombie and the zombie won" ... or maybe it was the law. Hum? You
can do a search for Brain
Robbers from Outer Space on the
internet and even purchase it. It is about four hours long so
keep your Pepsi nearby. Brain
Robbers from Outer Space is the unofficial sequel to Ed Wood's Plan Nine From Outer
Space[Ed Wood bio - click
here], it even stars Conrad Brooks, boy can I tell you stories about
Conrad.

Speaking of Conrad Brooks: You
worked with the man on Jan-Gel: The Beast Returns (2001),
which he also directed. What was the
collaboration with him like, and a few words about the film?

This was a BLAST too. I remember one day
watching Conrad direct and I probably shouldn't have said anything but I
couldn't help myself, it is so hard for me to watch someone direct and I
see things they are doing wrong or I see a better way to do it. One
scene, behind Conrad's back, I actually told an actor "watch me
for direction not Conrad." I know that sounds terrible but it
worked out okay. Also I would constantly correct Conrad, he would
say "Okay scene 4" and I would say "Conrad it's a take,
take 4." I would keep correcting him and tell him the
difference between takes and scenes. The
best one was when I was trying to direct an actor from behind his back and
he turned around and saw me mouthing what to do to the actor and he said
"Your directing him? Okay, go ahead kid, you know what you're doing, you direct it." So Conrad was okay with it, he did
appreciate my help and it made the movie one percent better. Conrad
is a great guy and I would love to work with him again, next time I'll
tell you what happened at McDonalds when we went for dinner one night.
I'll give you a hint. He put his hand out to some lady in line and
said "Shake the hand that shook the hand of Bela Lugosi."
Conrad knows I love him and I know he's okay with this. He's a GREAT
guy. I'm getting ready to shoot something again soon, maybe I'll
call him down for a scene or two, that would be cool.

Any
other movies you were in you would love to talk about?

Shaawanookie
was very cool to do. It's about a Bigfoot that terrorizes a bunch of
Weekend Warriors and I play Dr. Krell, a scientist who lives in a run down
trailer near the beast. It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward
to it coming out and watching it. For Christ's Sake I
finished like a year ago and I am waiting to see that one as well as it's
counter part For Nicole's Sake[Interview
with For Christ's Sake's Dustin Hubbard -
click here]. Indiscretions is another Jason Liquori flick from his company
Hocus Focus [Jason Liquori
interview - click here]. I have done several flicks for Jason including All
Wrapped Up, which I was in three of the four shorts, and I was also in
Deathplots in two of the four episodes also
by Hocus Focus Productions. I was a Reaper in
two episodes, a scientist named Ignus in another.

I,
along with my wife played security guards in Jaguar's Bite and
Jason even made a game out of it at the premiere, it was called Who can
find Wynkoop.

Dark Dimensions was AWESOME. I loved
the role of Louiss. I played an interdimension hopping timelord
that keeps getting in everyone's problems and helping them solve crimes,
thwhichat the people he's helping DO NOT appreciate - YouTube
- Dark Dimensions Trailer.

Twisted Illusions Two was
20 years in the making. Tim and I put at the end of Twisted Illusion
"coming soon Twisted Illusions Two" ... Well
it took us 20 years to decide to finally make it.

Time for
Dessert was a short I did for Phil Herman's anthology video Before
I Die - I cast my wife in it and she carried the
short, it was a lot of fun to do. We made it around the same time we
did The Part. It looks like just a woman picking up guys
until in the end you find out she is a alien that is killing and eating men,
shot 1950's style. Alien straight from the 50's.

Actors
(or actresses in fact) who inspire you?

Oh, some people will say "He's not
an actor" but I am a big Chuck Norris fan. I've seen all his
films and of course Walker, Texas Ranger. He inspired me
to take up Karate after I saw Good Guys Wear Black. Pacino, DeNiro, Shatner, gosh there are so many. I like a lot
of actors. I always say you learn something every day and you can
always learn something from someone no matter who they are. I guess
I'd have to say all actors, male and female.

Directors who
have influenced you?

My
partner Tim Ritter. I watched him direct first hand when we were
shooting Twisted Illusion, but even bigger than that was when
he was directing Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness. Hitchcock I suppose, Wes Craven, Romero,
Tarantino ... again a lot to look up to, but I think more than any I am influenced by the directors I have
worked for. Probably the biggest would be Herschell Gordon Lewis [Herschell
Gordon Lewis bio - click here] for
directors I have worked for. Garland Hewlitt, Jason Liquori, John
Lewis, Kevin Lindenmuth, and so many more that I have worked for. These are people I know personally and have worked for them, so it's easier
for me to be influenced by someone I'm working with then someone I haven't
met.

Apart from actor, director,
occasional producer and screenwriter you're also a cartoonist. Would you
like to talk about that aspect of your career a bit?

Well
I haven't done anything professionally but I just like to draw.
Sometimes if my wife and I are at Denny's or Perkins waiting on our meals
I will get some paper from the waitress and start drawing for the kids in
the restaurant. One lady actually did a search on me when she saw my
signature and found me on the Internet and she wrote to Tim and sent him
an e mail she "thought it was so nice of your friend to draw these
pictures for my kids." I created a bunch of super heroes and if
you pay attention to my movies you'll see Ray Blast pop up in
conversation in a lot of my movies. You should see my Stopped Dead
script, on the down time I was drawing constantly all over the
script pages. It's really just a pastime for me.

Once I met
Dave Cockrum who penciled the X
Men for Marvel Comics and I thought it was
so cool meeting him. I asked him, "Mr.Cockrum, could I draw a
picture and you could tell me what you think about it?" He said
"yeah, I'll either tell you it's good or it's a piece of shit."

I thought WOW, that's not very nice but I said okay anyway and went a drew
my superhero Ray Blast. I brought it back and stood in line again
and when I got up to him I said "Hey Mr. Cockrum, here it is, what do
you think?"

Keep in mind I just drew it really quick like in
ten or fifteeen minutes. He took it from me and said "This is
horrible, you need a lot of help in anatomy drawing", then he handed
it to the artist that did the golden age Captain Marvel, and he said
"What are all these lines, what is all this, this is terrible."
Then if that wasn't bad enough Dave Cockrum says "This is a piece of
shit man, you need a lot of help."

That was the last X
Men-comic that he penciled I ever bought. Rest in peace Dave Cockrum.

You
also seem to love comicbooks. Some of your favourites?

Spiderman
would be number one. Occasionally I'll still pick them up but not
like I did 20 years ago. They're to hard to keep up with. Everything continuing in another comic and so many crossovers and sub
stories, and when Marvel
tried to say Peter Parker was the clone all those
years and Ben Reiley was really Pete I said I've had enough. They
were trying to say all these adventures Peter Parker had as Spiderman
were really Ben Reily and they lost me then and now
forget it. Aunt May's dead, then she's alive again and dead again and
then Spidey makes a deal with Mephisto to get her back ... oh why did you get
me started?

But yes I still like them, I pick them up now and then
just to see whats going on in the Marvel
and DC universe.

Robocop 2 and
3, Laserblast, Spaceballs, Jason X (I don't want the humor and
robotics in Jason). I liked Freddy
vs Jason but I hated the pinball part. Batman and Robin ...
again probably more I just can't think of.

Anything
else you are just dying to tell us and I have just forgotten to ask?

I'm looking forward to the release of Grimm Fairy Tales the Herschell Gordon Lewis-movie
[Herschell
Gordon Lewis bio - click here]. This
will be my biggest movie yet so I hope the footage doesn't get lost,
burned in a fire, have a legal snag, put off, lawsuits, arguments between
the hands that be, anything that could stop this from coming out.
Sorry, I should be OPTIMISTIC!! It will be great to see it when it
comes out.

Also I got to work with Brooke McCarter from Lost Boys, and that was really cool. I had predicted this in 2007 I said on the
Screamfest-video "Brooke McCarter and I will work in a movie one day
we just don't know when" - YouTube
- Screamfest 2007 Part 2, about half way in, look
for it, it's history!

I think I have covered it all, althoguh I was
just told by my publisher for Cult Goddess Magazine - CultGoddessVol1
Issue 1 - that my articles are to big and no one reads them -
CULT
GODDESS TWO -, I hope that's not true here. Just trying to be as in-depth as I
can ...

Thank you Mike for showing interest in me and my
movies, hope to talk to you again soon. To everybody else that
watches my movies, thank you very much. Getting ready fro FX
INTERNATIONAL - FX
International-Creators Alley - so I better wrap it up. Thank you again Mike and your
readers.